In mobile communication networks heterogeneous architectures become more and more important. Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) are networks which utilize cell types of different sizes, as, for example, macro-cells, pico-cells, and femto-cells. Such cells are established by base station transceivers for which their coverage areas are determined by their transmission power and interference condition. Pico-cells and femto-cells are cells having a smaller coverage area than macro-cells. In some network scenarios the small cells' coverage area can be surrounded by the coverage area of a macro-cell. The small cells can be deployed to extend the capacity of the network. With regard to standardization, within the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), HetNets have been added to the scope of the Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) work item. Since the cells or base stations in such networks may utilize the same frequency resources such architectures can suffer from interference created by the overlapping coverage areas of these cells.
HetNet deployment is used to increase the system capacity and to handle a large amount of traffic especially at hot spots such as town centers. Small cells, e.g. pico-cells, can be deployed in these hot spots. A macro cell can balance the load in the system by offloading mobile transceivers or User Equipment (UEs) to small cells, when the UEs are in the vicinity of a small or pico-cell. The offloaded UEs can then be serviced by the pico-cell with high throughput, especially when the pico-cell is operative at a different frequency layer than the macro-cell.